The world's oldest working supermodel Daphne Selfe: Posture is everything

A GRANDE dame of the catwalk at 88, Daphne Selfe is still very much in demand, as she tells our reporter.

'I wasn’t really slim but I have never been fat. I was a middling size'

At 88, Daphne Selfe is the world’s oldest working supermodel. She has been photographed by the likes of Mario Testino and David Bailey and has modelled for Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren and Red or Dead as well as the high-street brand TK Maxx. And she shows no signs of slowing down.

Raised during the Second World War, she started modelling at 20 and attributes her slim physique to the wartime years.

I wasn’t really slim but I have never been fat. I was a middling size

Daphne Selfe

“I was brought up in the war so you didn’t have a lot to eat. You had a little of everything,” she says.

“I wasn’t really slim but I have never been fat. I was a middling size.

“The secret is to eat what you like within reason – little and often suits me. Make your own food. I don’t eat takeaways, there is too much sugar and salt. Plenty of exercise three times a week. I walk a lot and drink water. Plus, having a positive outlook helps more than anything.”

Daphne carries herself like a woman in her twenties. “I still think clothes look better on a slimmer person, but posture is everything,” she says. “If you stand up straight you are going to look good.”

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Daphne with flamboyant fashion icon Zandra Rhodes

Daphne stumbled into modelling by chance. “I started off at a riding stable then got a job in the local department store, which is now John Lewis in Reading,” she says. “I was a sales assistant in the fashion department. There was a competition in town looking for a cover girl for the local county magazine and I got it.”

Then she was cast in one of the store’s fashion shows, starting her modelling career in 1949.

“I had never heard of models before,” she reveals. “I was tall for those days – I was 5ft 7½in – so I went to do three weeks’ training at a modelling agency in London.

You learnt to walk properly with a book on your head, do your own make-up and hair, walk the catwalk, do your three-point turns and learn how to get out of a car without showing your knickers. We learnt generally how to behave, which people don’t get taught at schools now.”

Clearly always confident in her own skin, she has also stripped for art school figure modelling. When asked if she ever lacked self-assurance, she replies: “It’s not difficult. I had a good figure and people liked me.”

It seems the only thing about which Daphne is insecure is her hands, which she describes as manly.

She quit modelling when she married in 1954, but she loved to work and finding herself unable to stay away from the lens discovered another passion as a film extra.

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'It’s an ageing population. Now there are more older models and more agencies to cater for them'

“From 1963 to 2000 I did 400 films,” she says. Daphne has appeared in the films A Room With A View and Sliding Doors as well as some of the 007 movies.

“I have done several Bond films but wasn’t a Bond girl,” she says. “I did A View To A Kill with Roger Moore when I was fifty-something.”

After her TV and stage lighting director husband Jim died in 1997 Daphne returned to modelling at 70.

“Red or Dead wanted two older models, a man and a woman. It was tremendous fun, I loved it,” she says of the fashion shoot that led to the rebirth of Daphne Selfe the model.

“Three months later the stylist called me up and said: ‘Why don’t you go along to Vogue who are doing an article on ageing?’ So I went and the photographer, Nick Knight, shot me. I had never heard of him. From there I was scouted and signed up to an agency.”

She describes Nick as lovely, while stressing that photographers “have to be lovely people to get you to do what they want”.

Daphne seems untouched by the darker side of the modelling world. She has never dabbled in drugs –

“Oh no, never” – nor does she drink on the job: “You often get offered vodka and gin and tonic before you go on. But I would never drink. I would fall off the catwalk.”

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Daphne Selfe looks back on more than 60 years of modelling

She has also avoided unpleasant experiences with temperamental photographers, while admitting this was not always the case for some of her fellow models: “No, I was formidable looking. I was large and tall. But some others had trouble.”

Daphne has witnessed big changes in modelling over the years. “There are more foreign models, you have to be tall and thin, less than a size 8,” she says. And aware of the problem of anorexia, adds: “You can’t always tell. Some people are naturally thin.”

Daphne is open-minded about most things and describes transgender models as gorgeous. She also believes people of all types and sizes should be able to model: “I did a show for Diesel three years ago.

I was the oldest – the models were short, fat, tall, tattooed – all different sizes, genders, colours.”

Aware of her influence on the industry, she explains: “It’s an ageing population. Now there are more older models and more agencies to cater for them. I think we have set a trend. This year I did the first fifty-plus fashion show.”

In a floor-length kilt and a vibrant blue jumper, there is no doubt this mother of three and grandmother to four has established a style that her daughters describe as “classy funky”.

She confesses: “I love dressing up, I love clothes, I like being different.”

Daphne has made most of her own clothes for much of her life. “I like not walking down the street in a shop-bought item – and in those days it was cheaper,” she says.

“Nobody seems to really look in the mirror or care what they look like,” she complains. “The style is so casual – jeans and hanging out shirts and loose tops. This year there are so many patterns. If you wear a pattern you don’t see the person, you just look at the pattern.

“I have never been into big designers but I pick up bits from Dior or Chanel. I do like Victoria Beckham. I went into her shop – it’s fabulous.”

Self-confidence is the key to Daphne’s success and she loves working with younger models.

“Oh yes they are lovely,” she says. “I always get the toy boys. It’s all very nice because I am so old now no one is going to make a pass. I want to go on modelling and be inspirational. My daughter and I have started a modelling academy.”

The six-week course has already made an impact. Daphne says:

“A lady with MS did it and didn’t tell anybody. But the nurses in the home noticed she was sitting upright in her wheelchair, looking up and out. The lady said, ‘It’s been the best thing I have ever done.’ Someone told me it was worth its weight in gold. It’s giving confidence to the young but also to those who have become ‘invisible’ at 40 or 50.”

A fate that has no chance of overtaking Daphne.

Daphne Selfe’s book, The Way We Wore: A Life In Clothes, is published by Pan MacMillan, price £8.99. See Express Bookshop at expressbookshop.co.uk. Visit daphneselfe.com/academy.